Thursday, July 24, 2003

It's impossible to picture the terror, horror and pain this young woman went through in the last hours of her life. According to newspaper reports such as this one from the AP:

Araujo was slapped, choked, beaten with a skillet, tied up and strangled in an attack that lasted about two hours. Her body was driven to the Sierra foothills about 150 miles east and buried in a shallow grave.

TWO HOURS. Yet her murderers dare to argue that the murder charges and hate crime enhancement should be dropped because these poor boys just couldn't help it--they went into a panic when they discovered Araujo was biologically male!:

Attorneys for the three men argued that they were emotionally overwhelmed by the sudden realization that the beautiful girl they knew as Lida -- the girl two of them had had sex with -- was a man.

However, a judge rejected those arguments.

And rightly so. Again, it won't bring her back... but at least she's not being blamed for her own murder!